Though he has visited countless times since, Traub's trips to Italy during the 1980s — the period when he first visited — remains a critical points of his career. During that time, Traub traveled to various parts of Italy each year, staying for 2 or 3 weeks at a time, to photograph what he called La Dolce Via, or the Sweet Way, a reference to the exuberant street life that has long been a hallmark of Italian culture.

The street culture and leisurely pace that Traub documented is now mostly gone, he says, as Italy struggles to keep up with the competitive global economy. Traub calls his work from this period "a time capsule" to an Italy that no longer exists.